The <i>Ricci</i> decision is a reminder for all employers: Employment decisions cannot be made based on race, regardless of whatever good intentions the employer may have. Even though the Court confirmed that employers can take "affirmative efforts to ensure that all groups have a fair opportunity to apply for promotions and to participate in the process by which promotions will be made," the actual decisions cannot be tainted by racial consideration.
In-house counsel and their outside counterparts routinely struggle with the problem of when and how to issue legal hold notices. When is litigation reasonably anticipated? Who should get the notice? Should the notice be tailored to the case or based on a rigid template? One question that should have a consistent answer is whether the notice should be in writing.
Complex and systemic, the current financial crisis is nearly certain to yield extensive legislation regulating everything from the financial markets to mortgage brokers to ratings agencies. Any such legislation may raise interpretive issues similar to those that have arisen in recent Federal Court decisions interpreting section 304 and section 1514A(a)(1) of the sweeping Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 ("SOX").
Private companies with external Web sites can be susceptible to attackers looking to commit defacement or infiltrate computer networks to steal sensitive information. Here's what you need to know.
A recent U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decision reversing the U.S. Court of Federal Claims' denial of a vaccine injury claim highlights the widening gulf between the Federal Circuit and Federal Claims court on vaccine cases.
'Courts will not set aside an agreement on the ground of unconscionability simply because it might have been improvident,'" a panel recently held in <i>Etzion v. Etzion</i>, 2008-00759.
The two recent Supreme Court decisions in <i>Riegel</i> and <i>Altria Group</i> are difficult to reconcile in fundamental ways, and, consequently, they did little to provide meaningful guidance to litigants and lower courts.
“Baseball arbitration” refers to the process used in Major League Baseball in which if an eligible player's representative and the club ownership cannot reach a compensation agreement through negotiation, each party enters a final submission and during a formal hearing each side — player and management — presents its case and then the designated panel of arbitrators chooses one of the salary bids with no other result being allowed. This method has become increasingly popular even beyond the sport of baseball.
Insiders (and others) in the private equity business are accustomed to seeing a good deal of discussion ' academic and trade ' on the question of the appropriate methods of valuing private equity positions and securities which are otherwise illiquid. An interesting recent decision in the Southern District has been brought to our attention. The case is <i>In Re Allied Capital Corp.</i>, CCH Fed. SEC L. Rep. 92411 (US DC, S.D.N.Y., Apr. 25, 2003). Judge Lynch's decision is well written, the Judge reviewing a motion to dismiss by a business development company, Allied Capital, against a strike suit claiming that Allied's method of valuing its portfolio failed adequately to account for i) conditions at the companies themselves and ii) market conditions. The complaint appears to be, as is often the case, slap dash, content to point out that Allied revalued some of its positions, marking them down for a variety of reasons, and the stock price went down - all this, in the view of plaintiff's counsel, amounting to violations of Rule 10b-5.
The DOJ's Criminal Division issued three declinations since the issuance of the revised CEP a year ago. Review of these cases gives insight into DOJ's implementation of the new policy in practice.
There is no efficient market for the sale of bankruptcy assets. Inefficient markets yield a transactional drag, potentially dampening the ability of debtors and trustees to maximize value for creditors. This article identifies ways in which investors may more easily discover bankruptcy asset sales.
With trillions of dollars to keep watch over, the last thing we need is the distraction of costly litigation brought on by patent assertion entities (PAEs or "patent trolls"), companies that don't make any products but instead seek royalties by asserting their patents against those who do make products.
